by CYRUS OMBATI
Chief Crime Reporter
Saturday October 1, 2022
Kevin and Alfredin a past photo. Kevin was killed on September 23
in Mihango, Nairobi. after being shot at 36 times
Image: HANDOUT
A man missing for a week after his brother was shot 36 times in the city was found traumatised but alive on a roadside in Thika Town.
Alfred Ouma Obinya, 29, who has been missing since September 23, was found abandoned on the roadside on Thursday night. It was a week since he had been picked up from his house at 3am.
He and his brother ran a matatu business.
He looked confused, weak and in pain when he was found, minutes after his kidnappers abandoned him.
In was in shock on Friday at a city hospital where he was admitted for checkups.
He refused to talk to the media or police, saying his abductors had warned him against it.
He said he was in pain.
But he told relatives he was picked up by men, some who wore balaclavas. He was locked in a house with a toilet and bright lights were on constantly.
He was not allowed outside.
His food was slipped in through an opening.
The abductors asked where his gun was.
He told relatives he was asked if he had been to Somalia.
He kept saying he doesn't have a gun and has never been to Somalia.
“He says they kept asking the same questions about a gun that he doesn’t have and the Somalia issue. He doesn’t know them and he is afraid of talking about it further,” a family friend who saw him said.
He had been picked up from Maji Mazuri in Mwiki area on September 23 at 3am.
The gunmen wearing caps, balaclavas and bullet proof vests were captured on video harassing and sometimes torturing Alfred before they left with him.
The following day, his younger brother, Kevin Odhiambo Obinya, 24, was abducted in Mihango, Utawala.
They shot at him 36 times.The two brothers ran a matatu business in the city. The family said they had bought two matatus, which they were running.
Their father, Johannes Odhiambo Obinya, said he had visited several police stations and mortuaries within the city without success.
He said he was happy that Alfred is safe and home.
Kevin was lured to his death on September 23 at around 11.30am, hours after Alfred had been abducted.
The family believes Kevin was killed as he sought to establish the whereabouts of his brother, who had been picked from his house.
Police have since linked the two incidents to another one in Mirema area, Kasarani.
One of the men who was shot dead at Mirema has been identified as David Ochieng Odera, aged 34, while the second victim is yet to be identified.
On that night at around 10.30pm two men arrived near Jifiche Bar in a white Toyota Belta and parked as one of them went to the butchery, leaving his colleague making a phone call.
A few minutes later, a Toyota Probox driven by a woman and accompanied by two men also arrived at the scene from the Lumumba Drive direction.
The two men alighted and confronted the man who was making a call and demanded a mzigo (parcel) from him, saying he could “not eat it alone".
They had a bitter argument, attracting the attention of late night revellers.
The other man who had gone to the butchery, sensing the argument outside, rushed to their car. He picked up a gun and shot at one of the two men who arrived in a Probox and attempted to flee from the scene.
However, the two men who had arrived in the Probox, fired a hail of bullets at the car, fatally injuring the man as he attempted to drive off.
They then turned on the dead man's companion whom they had handcuffed, pumping several bullets into him as he lay on the ground, pleading for mercy.
Witnesses said the occupants of the Toyota Probox found them at the junction of Mirema and Lumumba drives and asked them the direction to Jifiche Bar.
The incidents are being investigated
(Edited by V. Graham)